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How to use with NVDA

How to use with NVDA

SpeechHub is designed to work in the background and consequently it is started automatically, if it is not running already, by an application that connects to it. One or more applications called 'clients' can use SpeechHub at the same time. When the last application close the connection to SpeechHub, SpeechHub is shutdown automatically after approximately 15 minutes. This means that when a SpeechHub synthesizer is not selected it does not use any resources on your computer.

Synthesizer and voice selection

After installation, while NVDA is running, press the NVDA key (Insert or Caps Lock depending on keyboard configuration) + 'n' and choose Preferences > Synthesizers from the menu. SpeechHub synthesizers are clearly marked in the dialog list. Select the synthesizer of your choice from the list and confirm by selecting OK. NVDA should start talking using the synthesizer's default voice.

To select another voice from the synthesizer you selected, press NVDA + n again and choose Preferences > Voice settings from the menu. In the voice settings dialog, select a voice from the list, and select any other parameters available in the usual way. Confirm your selection by pressing OK.

If you are happy with your SpeechHub voice selection and would like NVDA to use your selection next time you start it, press the NVDA + 'n' key and select Save configuration from the menu. If you set NVDA to save its configuration automatically, the last step is not required.

Note on voice settings

All the parameters available for selection in the Voice dialog are relevant with SpeechHub but note the following:

From the engines supplied with SpeechHub, only eSpeak supports variants and thus the variant list does not appear with other synthesizers.

Rate boost is provided by Sonic which is built into SpeechHub. But for Microsoft speech API version 5 common driver, all synthesizers support rate boost. MaryTTS and PicoTTS use Sonic permanently for rate and pitch control and therefore the rate boost check box is not available as these synthesizers are using it all the time (or in other words the check box cannot be unchecked).